I finally picked up Crysis 2 today after rushing through some coursework so I could go and buy it. I decided to go for the PS3 version simply because more friends are getting it for PS3. Haven't had a chance to play single player yet so can't comment on that, maybe in another post. For now here's my thoughts on the multiplayer.
First of all I can see a definite improvement from the demo; the frame rate is generally solid and network problems seem to have been sorted out. It's got a functional party system, voice chat, mute - all the usual. One nice feature is an option to auto mute all, so when I'm on skype or vent I don't have two groups of people shouting in my ear, and don't have to manually mute everyone one by one.
I have to say at first i was a little disappointed by the choice of weapons. They are broken down into 5 categories which are something like: SMG, Assault Rifle, Sniper, Shotgun and Heavy. Each category has around 2-3 choices and a variety of weapon unlocks are available as you progress. The higher unlockable guns definitely seem to be better overall which I'm not really too keen on, but I'm ranking pretty fast so not my problem I guess =D.
The nanosuit gives you 3 classes of abilities: Armour, Stealth and Power. Armour and stealth can be activated at any time proving you have suit energy (both drain energy while activated) , and power gives you the ability to sprint and perform higher jumps to scramble onto ledges around the maps. I have to say I'm more of a run and gun kinda guy, I tend to sprint around with an SMG and pop armour when I see someone. Stealth can be incredibly frustrating when used against this kind of play, it is hard to see without the right perks and you often get jumped from behind.
The perks are also split up into these categories, with a lot of them being similar to games like CoD. They upgrade as you complete challenges for them to provide additional bonuses. There's some pretty cool little ones like the ability to see players footsteps for a short period, so you can track them when they run off.
The game has customisable images to display when you kill others called dogtags. When you kill another player you have to run over their body to collect their dogtag which counts towards your killstreak. I used to find this really annoying because I would never get streaks when sniping, but now I have an awesome perk to automatically collect them for me. I guess this features helps to discourage camping and forces you to move at least a little if you want your rewards.
The maps all seem kind of city focused, lots of buildings to run in and jump on. There's a particular one which stood out to me where you play in a collapsed building. The rooms and corridors are all slanted and it makes for an interesting looking map. Whether it makes for good gameplay or not I cannot comment yet as I haven't played enough, and what I have played has been at low level. The game has also got this funtastic feature where you can crouch behind cars and kick them away from you. My friends and I had so much fun pushing cars around a parking lot map and using them to one shot kill unsuspecting victims.
The gamemodes I've seem so far seem pretty standard team based games - except one. There's an interesting mode called Assault where one team gets full use of the nanosuit and only gets to use pistols, while the other team can use other weapons but no nanosuit. The pistol team have to attack and capture designated points to win, defenders must stop them. I thought this was quite a cool idea and I haven't seen similar things in many games.
Overall I think the game is definitely worth a look. It's got a little bit for everyone really - fun features like kicking cars and air stomp (jump downwards from the air and kill people below) as well as solid gameplay for the more hardcore players (assuming you can accept the fact that stealth is a legit way to get kills). Decent community features as well as extensive stat tracking make it suitable for most, and if you are into the FPS genre it's well worth picking up.
